With Megyn Kelly 'Blood' Comment, Donald Trump Again Roils GOP Race

Posted by Political Quarterback17pc on August 08, 2015

The rift between Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump and the conservative mainstream appeared to deepen on Saturday as a conservative political gathering in Atlanta pulled Trump's invitation and rivals piled onto the billionaire for his comments about Fox News debate moderator Megyn Kelly.

Fellow 2016 GOP candidates perhaps sensed that with Trump as their party's standard-bearer, their chance to reverse the historic gender gap in the 2012 presidential election won by Democrat Barack Obama was under threat, months before the first votes are cast.

Trump's comment that blood was coming out of Kelly's “wherever” during Thursday's debate—made when she questioned him about his history of making disparaging comments about women—was “a bridge too far,” Erick Erickson, editor of the RedState political blog that organized the confab, wrote Friday night. “It is unfortunate to have to disinvite him. But I just don’t want someone on stage who gets a hostile question from a lady and his first inclination is to imply it was hormonal.”

Republican strategist Ford O’Connell said that the comments and attacks from rivals might not hurt Trump immediately but would be part of the mogul’s “slow implosion.”

“It may take weeks, it may take months, but Republican voters will realize this guy cannot be this thin-skinned and run for president of the United States,” said O’Connell, who worked for the McCain presidential campaign in 2008 and is so far unaffiliated this year. “If you can't handle it from Megyn Kelly, how are you going handle it from Hillary Clinton?”